Perfect Surgical Techniques, Inc. v. Olympus America, Inc.

On inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board construed the term “perforated” and invalidated several claims of PST’s patent, finding that those claims were anticipated or would have been obvious over Japanese Application Publication No. H1033551 A (JP 551) and that JP 551 qualified as prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a). The Board rejected PST’s argument that the Board could not rely on JP 551 as filed because the petitioners (Olympus) failed to translate the bibliographic page containing the publication date. The Board also determined that PST failed to antedate JP 551 because it had not proven that the inventor of its patent was reasonably diligent in reducing his invention to practice. The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded. While the Board’s acceptance of Olympus’ submission of JP 551 was harmless, the Board erred in its claim construction. On remand, the Board must determine whether all of PST’s evidence, considered as a whole and under a rule of reason, collectively corroborates testimony that the inventor worked reasonably continuously within the confines of his occupation to diligently finalize the patent application during an 81-day critical period. View "Perfect Surgical Techniques, Inc. v. Olympus America, Inc." on Justia Law